Robin C.M. Duncan

Recommended.

FROM BOOKFUNNEL: Quirk had one job to do, deliver papers to a Milan mafia boss, before leaving Earth for his home in the asteroids. But that was before being tailed, poisoned—oh, yes—and hijacked into raising foulmouthed fourteen-year-old convent girl Angelika Moratti, aka Moth, who'd rather see him asphyxiate in space.

Fleeing assassins, Quirk, Moth and her syRen® android S-0778 ride the space elevator to the Moon, where Quirk hires on to hunt an ex-terra-former who somehow used an android to murder his doctor. But which android of the two hundred under Lunaville’s dome? The trail of bodies grows, time is running out; the only way they can save the dome and the two thousand souls beneath it is to solve The Mandroid Murders.… (mais)

Duncan, Robin C. M. The Mandroid Murders. Quirk and Moth No. 1. Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 2022,
Robin Duncan is a civil engineer and short story writer from Glasgow. The Mandroid Murders is his first novel, and it is one of the best new independently published novels I have read this year. Quirk, a detective from the asteroid belt, is tricked by an Italian mobster into bodyguarding his badly behaved 14-year-old niece. Her name is Angelina, but she prefers to be called Moth and dreams of becoming a graffiti artist. The mobster’s rivals want to kill her so she cannot inherit the family business. Meanwhile, on the Moon, an android with an uploaded consciousness wants revenge against the corporation that put him there. Quirk and Moth must solve the case, whether they want to or not. The androids and other technologies are inventive and plausible. The frenemy relationship between Quirk and Moth is a lot of fun. I hope the next novel in the series is well on the way. 4 stars.… (mais)